Facebook
executives say the social media website has over a million active advertisers, a figure search giant
Google
revealed reluctantly when it reached the milestone in 2007.

Dan Levy
, Facebook’s director of global marketing for small business, made the announcement in a blog post overnight while thanking businesses for their “partnership".

Social media commentator
Kristen Boschma
said one million active advertisers is impressive, but she would have liked to have seen a country breakdown.

“Most of those advertisers would be local or small businesses trying to promote their page. “An understanding of the proportion of small businesses in each country who advertise on the social media platform would give us a better indication of Facebook’s success," she said.

In touting the figure, Facebook has made another effort to show the market that its advertising capability – under question for most of last year – has in fact grown, and it’s willing to share its figures beyond quarterly financials to prove it.

After its tainted public listing last May, Facebook spent much of the year focused on proving to analysts that it was capable of growing revenue through advertising, particularly through mobile, an area it admitted it was slow to invest in.

That investment was highlighted overnight with
Facebook
chief executive
Mark Zuckerberg
meeting executives from smartphone leader
Samsung
at the company’s headquarters in South Korea.

Bloomberg reported that Mr Zuckerberg and Samsung president Shin Jong Kyun discussed potential partnerships, according to the head of the South Korean company’s handset division.

However, it’s still far behind Google, which is expected to increase its share to 55.97 per cent this year.

In stark contrast to Facebook’s openess, Google was coy about its millionth advertiser when it first hit the number in 2007. The New York Times reported in 2009 that the number was only revealed in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission two years later.

Because Facebook was only a minor player in the market at the time, the report compared Google’s figure with rivals
Yahoo
and
Microsoft
, marking the huge advertiser base as a reason why Google made so much more money in search advertising.